After the first day of the academy concluded Kes started walking home, his head still in a bit of a daze. He understood what had happened during the final game earlier, but the way of losing had still annoyed him quite a bit.
The sun was hanging low in the sky as it was about to set.
Kes decided to hurry home and worry about it later, it was not in his best interest to stay outside during nightfall and he was very hungry too. He hoped a good meal was waiting for him at home, he could use one after his embarrassing defeat earlier.
He returned home and opened the door where his mother was waiting for him.
She was not teaching extra language lessons after school yet so she had returned home earlier than him.
Nora greeted him. "Hey Kes, how was the second lesson? Did that old man teach you anything interesting?"
Kes looked at his mother and scoffed. "Oh it was interesting alright. After explaining the basics he went straight to explaining about reading emotions from a person's Flow."
Nora looked at him for a while and then started rubbing her eyebrows as if she was pondering over something.
"Oh, so you didn't just start with learning how to better strengthen your body. I knew that old man wasn't as simple as he lets on. I wonder what else he's hiding."
Nora looked Kes up and down. "You don't look very happy, did something bad happen to you during the lesson."
Kes sighed and started explaining what happened during the lesson. The card game he played, how he almost got away with a win, and how he in the end had fallen just short of the victory because Ade and Nash were just better and more experienced than him.
He talked about the strategy and the bluffing he had used to almost win the game. And explained how he had outsmarted them, but that in the end, it just did not matter.
"I am not really that mad about it. It's just that I thought it was unfair that the three of us did not stand a chance from the beginning because those two are just that much more experienced in reading the Flow of another person."
Nora looked Kes up and down again. "Not that mad about it? You're lying I can sense it from your Flow"
Kes scowled and looked at his mother. "If you're that good then why do you keep refusing to teach me more about Flow proficiency. You keep teaching me those useless languages while you know others are already far ahead of me."
Nora started laughing. "That was a bluff, but thank you for confirming it for me."
His face turned to an even deeper scowl as he angrily stared at his mother, but she wasn't done talking yet.
After laughing for a while her face suddenly turned serious. "But you really shouldn't look down on the languages and other knowledge I keep teaching you. Trust me when I say these will come in a lot more handy than the simple Flow proficiency Ade and Nash have right now. They might seem like they are way better than you right now but you will catch up or at least reach a point where you can compete with them in no time. But they don't know the things I taught you, and this is where they will have to catch up to you instead."
Kes partially knew what she was saying was true of course.
With the skill he had right now he would probably last longer in the big cities than Ade or Nash ever would. Lots of people were more proficient in using Flow than them, they were still young after all, but the knowledge he had would come in useful no matter the age.
It was crucial to be able to communicate with others after all, and if you did not speak their language chances are you would not be able to communicate with them at all.
Though Flow represented power on a physical level, enough proficiency over Flow could overpower all, knowledge was power too. By using his head Kes would be able to go to the big cities and survive there. He never had interest in becoming the strongest Flow user in the world, but being beaten by his classmates like this still ticked him off and made him want to grow stronger.
After discussing class a bit more Nora and Kes decided to join Yosen at the dinner table.
The dinner was the same as always, a little meat with cooked potatoes. His parents were not the best cooks, which was surprising. Nora had been a scholar exploring the villages of the world after all. She should have been able to cook for herself, who knows which situations she would find herself in, and small rural villages usually had no inn for guests to stay.
But she usually just tried to find a nice household and eat with them. And if this was not possible she would make due with what she had, which usually resulted in a sloppy meal.
Yosen being bad at cooking was surprising for the simple fact that he lived in a rural small village, everyone here had to cook for themselves but he just was not very good at it.
Yosen was still slightly better than Nora. But because he was out hunting a lot of the time and Nora was a recluse usually spending her day sitting inside studying or being with the village chief to talk about the big cities, she had more time on her hands and usually was the one who cooked.
But now since Nora was going to spend her time teaching at the academy, and might have to give extra language classes after school, Yosen was going to be the one cooking most of the time.
Kes was pleased by this, his mother really sucked at cooking and one of the things he loved most were tasty things. His father still was not optimal but he took what he could get.
Kes loved tasty things, so much so that he even tried cooking himself. But it seemed to run in the family and he too absolutely sucked at cooking. He was determined to get better in the future so he could make good tasting food for himself, he did not want to end up like his parents.
Kes took a bite out of his meat and potatoes and satisfyingly chewed while the flavors mixed in his mouth.
Yosen looked at Kes. "So how was your first day at the academy? Did you learn anything interesting?"
Kes swallowed his potatoes. "It was alright."
Yosen frowned. "Don't you have anything more to say than that, I'm sure a lot happened today."
Kes sighed and looked at his father. "You are asking the exact same questions as mom, I already told her everything. Do I really need to say it all again?"
Nora chuckled, seemingly finding what was happening a bit amusing.
"Yes please." Yosen smiled as he waited for Kes to start talking about his day.
Kes sighed and started explaining what had happened that day all over again. He mostly put emphasis on the card game he had barely lost, he was clearly a bit upset that his strategy had failed. Or not that it had failed, but the way in which it all fell short.
Yosen sighed as he listened to his son talk about the lost card game.
"I don't think your strategy was necessarily bad, you would have won if not for their better Flow proficiency. But take this as a lesson to also take others into account when forming a strategy."
Yosen thought for a bit before saying: "Never form a strategy reliant on someone else, a factor you can't control. Try to plan around things that you know can be controlled so that the strategy is reliant on nothing but yourself. At that point you can only blame yourself for failing."
Kes gave his father a strange look. "But what if you have to plan around things you absolutely cannot control."
Yosen sighed. "In that case it is impossible to form a perfect plan and the chances are high something will go wrong. Most of the time when a plan has an imperfection that imperfection will be exploited and something will go wrong. Never be complacent even when you think a plan is almost perfect, just always assume that anything that can go wrong will go wrong."
Kes nodded thoughtfully, thankful for his fathers insightful advice.
He realized that he was still young and still had a lot to learn. Older people had more life experience after all, and every person had experienced something different making them more knowledgeable in their field.
Knowledge was where he had the advantage over kids like Nash and Ade right now, and he was always interested to learn more to increase this advantage. As long as he stacked up on knowledge, closing the gap in Flow proficiency would naturally come later.
Kes quickly cleaned up his plate savoring the taste of the meat and potatoes.
"Thanks for the advice, I'm going to my room and start meditating now. I still feel a bit bad about the gap in Flow proficiency between me, Nash and Ade."
Nora smiled softly. "Alright, good luck, but remember to sleep early tonight, you have a whole day of academy again tomorrow."
Kes quickly entered his room and got into a position good for meditating.
As he meditated he focused on his Flow, he tried to feel it expanding and tried to sense things with it.
After meditating for a couple hours he felt his Flow pool had increased by a little bit.
He could still feel the difference because he still had a low amount of it. True Flow masters would not feel an increase after meditating for a couple hours. That was unless their proficiency was so insanely good that they could sense every tiny change in their own Flow.
'I'm still very weak when it comes to Flow. Even though my parents keep saying I will catch up eventually, if I do not work hard I won't be able to catch up in the first place.'
After his defeat in the card game and his parents following advice Kes was feeling more motivated than ever.
'Starting today I will do my very best to keep training, keep learning and keep better. This way I will catch up and not lose again.'
If this was just a quick burst of motivation or a permanent thing Kes did not know yet. But he did know that right now all he wanted to do was improve, improve and improve.
Thinking about this while laying in his bed he closed his eyes and went to sleep, he could not wait for the following days at the academy.